Mom had a patch of dry skin on her shin about 1-1/2 months ago that must have been itchy, she scratched and somehow this blew up into a chronic wound and cellulitis that 3 rounds of antibiotics and topical antibiotic would clear up for a bit, then would come back.  It was decided on Monday that she would go into the hospital for IV antibiotics and for the infectious disease service to give their opinion on.

My brother and I traded off times of day and spent as much time as we could at the hospital, but we are both working full time, so there were times she was in her room watching TV.  They did provide a sitter who was watching the man next door to her and my mother, helping to take them to the bathroom with the IV pole, getting water, etc.

The hospital was a beautiful facility, but I've been so used to the home's staff just knowing how to deal with dementia it was kind of a rude awakening that the sitters and some of the nurses didn't seem to be too familiar with dementia.  On a certain level, mom does look fairly normal and I think they were misjudging her capabilities.  I'm not sure why, because she was agitated during a lot of the week and was in bed saying "mumma, mumma" so that definitely should indicate SOMETHING is up with her, but anyway....

By midweek I was really trying to be there for all meals - they do give you the ability to order what you want, but I was only able to do that once (timing issue).  The rest of the time they sent her whatever the basic meal was - ever try to eat spaghetti while propped up in bed?  I had to feed her that one.  The other meals I could get her out of bed and into a chair to eat properly.

Because she was so confused at times, it was really difficult to get her to use the toilet in the hospital.  When I would take her, I got her in the bathroom with no problem, but when I would try to help her sit down, I could only get her 3/4 of the way there and she would pop up again and say NO.  After 20 minutes or so, I could get her to sit down and she would go, but all of this fuss made her avoid saying she had to go to the bathroom and by the end of the week she was pretty much incontinent - lots of gown and sheet changing.

The cellulitis was a staph or strep bacteria, they used Unasyn and vancomycin all week and her leg looked so much better by discharge time.  Since lots of Canadian readers visit, I'll explain that Medicare and Medicaid in the U.S. have certain criteria that must be met during a hospital stay.  For some reason, they required that a demented person NOT NEED A SITTER for 24 hours and then would be allowed to be discharged.  ??????  does this make any sense?  For 12 hours, they used the sitter unofficially to keep an eye on mom and for the last 12 hours they had her in a semi-private room with a webcam on the TV facing her to monitor her. 
Another item I was kind of bothered with was the fact that my mother is on Medicaid (she is indigent) and the home made a big deal of having to do readmission paperwork and telling my brother they would let her keep her bed instead of moving her.  I have read the Medicaid rules for Michigan and they specifically state that if she goes to the hospital for 10 days or less, Medicaid will pay for her bed to be held - she was only gone 5 days.  I'm going to speak with someone about this, maybe I'm missing something here.

On discharge day, the infectious disease doc came to take one last look at the leg and filled out the paperwork for her to go back to the home.  I took her back and when we came in the front door, the lady who cleans her room hugged her and told her how glad she was to have her back.  She then went straight off to lunch, where everyone welcomed her back.  She was so happy to be back there in her familiar place!  That made me really happy, because I know she feels comfortable there and the staff know her so well.

My brother went to see her today and after she had visited him for a while she said she wanted to go into the living room and went.  I'll be going tomorrow.  I'm so glad this episode is over and I hope we don't have to repeat it!